Recent graduate awarded foreign affairs fellow

Highlighter & Laureate,
Fall 2003

Photo: Janelle Guest (in purple outfit) is one of 19 (from thousands of applicants) chosen to receive the Thomas R. Pickering Graduate Foreign Affairs Fellow. The group participated in a training session last June.

Janelle Guest is one of 19 (from thousands of applicants) chosen to receive the Thomas R. Pickering Graduate Foreign Affairs Fellow. The group participated in a training session last June. Janelle Guest, who earned a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science and a Bachelor of Arts in Communication Studies at UDM this past May, is a graduate with a bright future in foreign affairs. She was selected by the United States Department of State as a Thomas R. Pickering Graduate Foreign Affairs Fellow. This very competitive and prestigious program provides grant funding to prepare awardees academically and professionally to enter the Foreign Services. Named after career Ambassador Thomas R. Pickering, the award consists of tuition, living stipend, and mandatory fees.

Guest is currently attending Wayne State University, where she is pursuing her Master’s in International Relations. As part of her career development training with the Department of State, Guest will receive two paid summer internships with the department (one in Washington, D.C. and one at a U.S. embassy oversees), and guidance from a Foreign Service Officer mentor during her graduate studies. Upon completion of her graduate degree, she will enter the Foreign Service with a full-time position as a Foreign Service officer.

As for the future? Guest hopes to come full circle with her education and foreign service training.

“I hope to obtain my Ph.D. in Political Science and use my international experience as a Foreign Service officer by bringing it back to the college classroom,” says Guest. “As a professor, I can further encourage students to study international relations.”